


Part Of Me

by double_negative



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Childhood Friends, Crushes, Depersonalization, Identity Issues, Love Confessions, M/M, Panic Attacks, Partial Mind Control, Scars, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22802479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/double_negative/pseuds/double_negative
Summary: Eli realises he's the only person left alive who knows how Tretij's face looks.
Relationships: Liquid Snake/Psycho Mantis
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Part Of Me

**Author's Note:**

> whoops.  
> they're teenagers in this. timeline is vague and doesn't matter.

Eli realises he's the only person left alive who knows how Tretij's face looks. He's also the only one who knows how much hurt it brings to Tretij, to have a face that's like _that_.

He never minded really, he never realised how special it is though, to see the face of his best friend. Not sunken pale eyes rimmed by deep shadows of exhaustion, far more haunting than anything Eli thought a living person could have. Not freckled ears framed by wavy fiery locks that are weighed down with water after a shower. Not the nape of the neck, sharp knobby vertebrae disappearing into a sweater Tretij insists on wearing even when it's unbearably stuffy. No, his actual face, something Eli doubted at times even existed, so used he was to the gas mask. He could almost see Tretij's emotions in the shifts of light and shade on the rubber surface.

***

It's special because over the link, every time Tretij manages to think of himself, its just a dark mass of static and grime and smoke rising up in his mindscape. Tiny, leaving black streaks over everything he touches. A monster, something inhuman and still vague, the horror of it not in appearance, but in a fact that someone can think so little of themselves they don't even see themselves as human.

It's unfair, Eli thinks, loud, hoping his feelings would imprint on Tretij's psyche, make him reconsider, make him see himself the way Eli sees him. Every time he feels the psychic link tugging at him, probbing his thoughts, he tries to share just a bit of his self-confidence, even a tiny bit would help, he thinks. Even a little. Everything with Tretij is baby steps, slow but steady, but this issue seems to be unfixable.

Tretij cuts him off, gets annoyed. "You don't know what I look like", he snaps and it's the angriest Eli has ever seen him, the most Eli seen of Tretij's own anger. It doesn't flare out in plumes of flame, doesn't expand and explode, it's cold, defeated and so matter-of-fact, Eli feels his heart wrench.

He concedes for a while, but it's not like he's not curious as well. Surely it can't be that bad, he thinks. He won't be afraid or disgusted, not him, being appaled by something about Tretij seems unfathomable. He's the closest Eli ever let anyone to him and he'll probably remain the closest person to him, almost literally reaching his pale bony fingers into his psyche.

"You're too loud", Tretij thinks at Eli, clearly irked, "If you're going to fuss over it so much, I am never showing you."

Eli snaps to reality from his mindscape, filled with thouands of possible faces, "You know I won't care if it's not pretty, do you?"

Tretij exhales loud through the filter, "That's why I am not showing you", he's actually using words now, so that must be important, Eli notes.

"You are afraid I'm not going to think you may actually be beautiful, that's right?", Eli teases, but the sudden spike of embarrassment over the link is unmistakeable. "That's right!", he triumphantly claps his hands. "You think I will know the truth and I'll stop imagining you as someone beautiful, but you're wrong."

Tretij cocks his head to the side, awkwardly, as if trying to conceal a blush that no one will ever see anyway. "How so?", his voice is a mumble Liquid barely recognizes.

"Well I already like you! I've been inside your head! I've seen things! Is your face that much worse? Do you expect me to stop feeling you're beauti..." Eli cuts himself off, his own blush is furious at the realisation of what he just said.

Tretij turns back to face him and the lighting makes his gas mask almost look as incredulous as his words, "Ellie, I'm in your head as well. I know what you think of me. Why are you ashamed all of a sudden?"

"Well, I am not supposed to say it out loud", Eli switches to the link, too flustered to talk.

Tretij hufs a laugh or clears his throat, it's never clear with that damned mask then after a moment of silence, he muses "Well, if I wanted to hear you say it out loud, I'd just make you", his eyes are thin slits of concentration now, even paler than before. Eli feels like he's slipping away, losing control, like he's freefalling and his body moves on his own, his voice comes out on his own.

"Tretij, I am madly in love with you since the day I have laid my eyes upon you", Eli realises he's talking, but it's not him, the cadence isn't quite right, it's his voice but not his words, "Also I smell", Tretij adds with Eli's mouth.

It's weirder than anything they've shared before and Eli doesn't even notice mockery behind discomfort he feels. It itches and stings, almost burns at every nerve, he's clearly fighting to take his body, his control back, but he's wavering, too insignificant in comparison to Tretij's presence in his head, a usual weight now overwhelming, crushing. He's weak, he's so so so weak in comparison to Tretij and Eli hates it, hates it more than anything because now it makes him feel _scared_. Like drowning, like suffocating, like burning alive. He can't breathe. He can't think. He's trying to hold on, to catch something that is slipping, slipping, slipping away and he can't, it flows through his outstretched fingers, leaving him breathless, shattered...

Eli blinks and it's gone. The pressure relieves so instantly, he feel like he's been turned inside out, upside down, the shift so immidiate, he finds himself on the ground, heaving and retching. Tretij's hand, unsleeved is on his back, unsure if to soothe or pull away. "I'm sorry", he says, with his own mouth now. And over the mind link, a single frayed thread in comparison to what Eli fely just a minute ago, Tretij's feelings are broadcasted in muddy chaotic spurts. Guilt, shame, guilt, disgust, shame, remorse. Eli tries to calm himself, but his heart is still pounding like a trapped bird in his chest.

"Please don't do that again", Eli chokes out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and he can hear Tretij loud and clear, both aloud and mentally promising that he won't, his hand finally deciding on it's placement, kneading comfortingly at Eli's shoulder. It feels nice, nice enough maybe to justify the panic attack.

"I am sorry, Ellie" aloud and "I love you too" over a link at the same time do nothing to calm Eli's stampeding heart and this feeling is also overwhelmingly large in it's presence, but it's a comfortable warmth, nothing close to the panic that wracked him.

Eli smiles, his mouth still speckled with stray saliva drops. Now he really smells. "And if you ever put words into my mouth again, I am going to smash your pretty skull on the first rock I see", he makes an empty threat, knowing well that even if he wanted to hurt Tretij, he couldn't land a single hit on him.

There's that flood of embarrassment again. "You like me calling you pretty?", Eli needles, too eager to regain his usual smugness, "You do!", he presses, noticing Tretij averting his eyes again, but it's clear as day over their link. "I just want to know if the outside matches the inside, that is all. I liked you without ever seeing you, so it won't even matter."

Tretij mubles again, a childish habit made worse by constantly wearing a thick mask, "Fine. Just wash your face first, it's disgusting."

"Liar. I'm incomparably handsome even covered in bile", Eli chortles, before bolting for the bathroom.

***

When he returns, Tretij's back is to the door, but there are no familiar straps, crisscrossing the back of his head. He took the mask off while Eli was in the shower. He waited for him like that, Eli realises. The quiet calm of their link flares with anxiety the moment he enters the room and approaches Tretij's bed. He approaches slowly, baby steps, he remembers, but he can feel Tretij's impatience.

"Like ripping off a bandaid", Eli smiles.

"Yes." Tretij's voice is so small even without the mask muffling it. "Come here before I change my mind."

And Eli does. He sits on the bed and at first extends his hand without really looking, brushing away red locks, a gesture so familiar and comforting, the unrest in the air seems to calm down a bit. When Tretij leans in to the touch, Eli realises, he's touching his face, his naked face is under his still wet fingertips. It's intimate and so, so weird. The texture is smooth then rough then smooth again and Eli raises his eyes to meet Tretij.

The shadows around his eyes look even darker than they are through the tinted lenses, black and blue. He actually doesn't have any eyelashes or eyebrows, Eli notes. Tretij follows his exploration through a link, getting more aprehensive with every new feature Eli's eyes pass over, but Eli smoothes over his hair in calming motions, gentler than he has ever been, his presence is reassuring, his words are full of reverence, "It's not as bad as you think."

It's bad, Eli thinks. It's bad, but it could have been worse, but it doesn't really matter, it never really mattered how Tretij looked like, it was always about trust. And curiosity, of course.

The rough texture is bumpy, raised scarring that looks angry red on paper-white skin, almost as if it's new, never healed at all. It spans sunken cheeks, crosses sharp cheekbones and surrounds his nose, edges erupting into constellations of faded freckles, noticeable even without having been exposed to the sun in a while. Eli traces the scarring with his fingertips, almost as if afraid to hurt. Tretij's thoughts are indecipherable, a mess of contradictions and fears, but the more Eli touches him, the calmer they grow.

"You are pretty", Eli says out loud, in part because he really, really wants to say that, in part because he needs to see if Tretij actually blushes. And he does. His freckles almost disappear into a blush so radiant on pale skin that it almost rivals the darkness of his scars. He tries to turn his head away, but Eli is close, too close and Tretij's mind is a mess. Embarrassment, guilt, shame, disgust, love.

"I love you too", two voices ring out in unison, dissipating into laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> i think it's my third fic with face-tracing and touching. i think i may have a problem.


End file.
